In recent years, sectional or modular homes have begun to be utilized greater in residential development. The scarcity and cost of labor for custom construction or "stick built" homes have made sectional or modular buildings particularly attractive. Generally, a sectional structure is built in a factory in 2, 3 or more sections and shipped to a site where the sections are arranged and situated on an existing foundation.
It is advantageous and most efficient to build individual sections in relatively large units, because it is most efficient to limit the number of sections used for a particular dwelling design. One principal limiting factor to the section size is State highway laws limiting the width of sections transported over the highways.
It has been known to hingeably mount the eave on a sectional component of a structure in order that during transport the eave may be folded to a transport position overlying the roof. This decreases the effective transport width of the builing module, but still enables the same building module to take advantage of the aesthetic and functional advantages of the eave extension once the structure is placed on a foundation. While hingeably mounted eaves are desirable in connection with the design of module or sectional dwellings, there are a number of disadvantages inherent in a hingeably mounted eave design. In this regard, first, in the prior art, it has been common to utilize thick, heavy duty door type hinges in connecting the eave to the roof of the sectional structure. With such hinges, there is a great deal of labor and time consuming work involved because in order to appropriately connect the hinges between the roof and the eave structure, there is a substantial amount of routing required in order that the hinges may be appropriately countersunk into the roof and eave structure.
One other problem associated with hingeably mounted eaves of the prior art is that the metal hinges utilized experience a great deal of stress as the eave is moved back and forth between transport and the normally extended positions. It is important to provide a hinge construction that will be able to withstand the stress and abuse resulting from supporting the eave structure and the fatigue associated with the bending and flexing of the hinge as the eave is moved between transport and extended positions.